1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to toys and amusement devices and is particularly concerned with devices having multiple geometric faces mounted to a central sphere and with face components being movable with respect to faces and the faces movable with respect to the sphere.
2. Prior Art
Toys having interconnected movable components that are arranged to be manipulated by a user into one or more derived patterns have long been known.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,377,916, for example, discloses a chain-like toy made of plurality of isosceles triangular hollow prism units interconnected for rotation of the units.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,325,552, discloses a series of sphere elements connected by a common axis through heir centers and rotatable about their axis.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,845,959 and 4,378,116, show toys in which blocks are combined to form a larger block or cube and with the individual blocks being movable on axes to change their relative positions in the larger block or cube and/or to change the orientation of the individual blocks with respect to the larger block.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,344,623 discloses a toy having a central part with a central canopy members defining tracks for movable blocks that are movable relative to the central part.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,840,234 discloses an amusement device comprising a transparent main tetrahedron, a central tetrahedron, each of the sides of the central tetrahedron forming a side of an octohedron, an unapertured transparent planer member and a set of balls adapted to be moved into and out of corners of the main tetrahedron by manipulation of the main tetrahedron.
While the above identified prior art references disclose games of the same general type as that of the present invention, they do not provide the same challenge to a user as results during the use of the present invention.